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Michael Anastassiades Studio: Mint Street

October 2018

Michael Anastassiades

Designer Michael Anastassiades creates work with an enduring quality by focusing on proportion, the honest use of materials, and the physical presence of an object. Positioned between fine art and industrial design, his pieces exist between that which is utilitarian in its function, whilst poetic and enigmatic in its presence.

Anastassiades’ work is featured in permanent collections at the Museum Of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Crafts Council in London, the FRAC Centre in Orleans France, the MAK in Vienna and Art Institute of Chicago. Recent solo exhibitions include Time And Again at the Geymüllerschlössel/MAK in Vienna, To Be Perfectly Frank at Svenskt Tenn in Stockholm, Norfolk House music room at the Victoria & Albert museum in London, Cyprus Presidency at the European Parliament in Brussels Belgium, Atelier Jesper Brussels. He has designed products with various leading manufacturers including Flos, Herman Miller, Salvatori, Puiforcat, B&B Italia, Cassina, Fantini, Lobmeyr, Dansk Møbelkunst and Svenskt Tenn.

Founding his London-based studio in 1994, followed by his eponymous brand in 2007, Michael Anastassiades has since produced a celebrated collection of lighting, furniture, and objects that demonstrate the studio’s continuous search for eclecticism, individuality and timelessness. Anastassiades trained as a civil engineer at London’s Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine before taking a masters degree in industrial design at the Royal College of Art.

Co-curated by London Design Festival and Lisbon-based experimentadesign, and designed by Michael Anastassiades Studio in partnership with Portuguese quarry marble companies Mármores Galrão and Dimpomar, a secluded street in Southwark has been paved in a carpet of recycled marble.

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Mint Street by Michael Anastassiades

Mint Street by Michael Anastassiades

Mint Street by Michael Anastassiades

Mint Street by Michael Anastassiades

Mint Street by Michael Anastassiades

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Due to minor flaws, discolouring or imperfections, much of marble quarried is then rejected by contractors, architects and designers. Having identified this as a waste of otherwise perfect raw material and it being sent to landfill, London Design Festival were offered unwanted marble and asked to consider how it could be used creatively. Michael Anastassiades responded to the edge of the marble rather than the traditional flat surface, with the resulting design of the street making reference to traditional cobbles, as seen throughout Portugal.

These cobbles were similarly rendered from unusable material but through the laborious task of forming each stone by hand. Transported to the historic community in Southwark, part of Bankside Design District, these elements create a marble carpet that contributes to the urban landscape of the Mint Street Park area while creating a new connection between the park and its surrounding neighbourhood.

“I wanted to create a simple gesture that used the natural beauty of Portuguese Rosa marble,” explains Anastassiades. “Similar to how a carpet delineates a space or marks a path, I imagined the tiled road rolling out on the street, connecting the park to the remaining neighbourhood”.

Mint Street is open to the public and is a permanent installation.

Supported by The Arts Council of England and Primeira Pedra
Further Support by Southwark Council

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London Design Festival is an annual event, held to celebrate and promote London as the design capital of the world and as the gateway to the international creative community.

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